Even at a frail 90, Martha Katz has an impish energy that remains undiminished. She chides grandson-filmmaker Daniel Schubert over his choice of shirt during a visit to her Los Angeles home, but there’s trauma beneath the humour. At 14, Martha and her family were torn from their village in Czechoslovakia and shipped to Auschwitz. A visit to a Holocaust museum ignites painful memories, including a haunting personal encounter with one of Nazi Germany’s most notorious figures. For Martha, however, the emphasis is on a tough but rewarding postwar life in Winnipeg, which she fondly recalls in this warm, intimate portrait of an unrelenting survivor.

Filmmaker Daniel Schubert visits his grandmother, Martha, in this warm, intimate portrait of an unrelenting survivor.

Why did you want to make this film?

I’ve always wanted to record my grandmother’s stories, just for the family. My grandfather was an amazing orator and he had crazy stories himself, but he died in 2001. My grandma wouldn’t talk about her experiences. I was thinking: one day I’m going to sit her down, even if she doesn’t want to, and get those stories on tape. I don’t want to get too political, but then Trump was elected and all the right-wing misinformation started going around, and I read that one fifth of Canadian youths don’t know what the Holocaust is; in the US, apparently, 22 percent of millennials don’t know what the Holocaust is. That’s pretty alarming. We’re growing up in a world without context and I have a living historical document—my grandmother. Here’s a person with a tattoo on her arm to prove it happened.

How did she respond when you approached her with this idea?

She didn’t want to do it. But she loves boasting to her friends like a Jewish grandmother would—she introduces me as her “producer grandson”—and she said, “I’ll do it if you want me to.” I wanted this on the record for my future kids and their kids. She did it because she wanted to help me.

Was it a challenge to strike the film’s balance of humour and tragedy?

Comedy has always been my thing, and she’s the quintessential Jewish grandmother and just the funniest person in the world, naturally. I knew that I wanted to get this funny stuff on camera. I didn’t want to do just a sad story; it had to reflect my sensibilities. I wanted it to feel like it feels when we’re together.

What is the quality you most admire about Martha?

Her tenacity. Her will to live. She’s physically frail and has been for a long time, but mentally she’s 100 percent there, and I think it’s through sheer will. She just refuses to give up on anything.